Puppet Master
by GoatEatingToilet
Summary: Ellianna Audron never had an easy life (witches rarely did) and when the villagers burned down her home it only got worse. She took her revenge, but at the ultimate cost of her powers and freedom. Now an exile in the cursed land of Wraeclast, can she find a way to survive? To endure? To rise to dominance? (Rated T for violence and gore. AU because of non-canon lore) Story on hiatus
1. Chapter 1 - A Rude Awakening

_Author's Note: My story, much like Pikdude's, will center on a witch who happens to have a morbid interest in minions, both undead and otherwise. I do plan on taking my tale down a bit of a different path though (pun intended)._

**Chapter 1 – A Rude Awakening**

* * *

I awoke to a sensation that caused me to begin coughing violently, expelling liquid from the very back of my throat in a manner not at all unlike vomiting… only, I wasn't vomiting. I couldn't be. I hadn't done such a thing since I was a small child and besides, this had a visceral, salty taste to it.

I opened my eyes, feeling cold and wet as water splashed against me, steadily making its way up my body. I couldn't find the energy to react and when in enveloped my head and filled my throat and lungs with more liquid I violently coughed again, exorcising the salty sea water I had tasted before and springing to a standing form without even thinking. It was dark and I was completely soaked from head to toe, wearing nothing more than the rags I had managed to find in my former swampland home. Where was I?

A quick survey of the land to my right and all I could see ahead of me was endless beach decorated with patches of jagged, jutting rocks and makeshift base camps. Some still had burning fires in them, even. I was not alone here, I could not be, and yet there were no signs of life anywhere to be seen. Flashes of lightning, while nearly blinding, illuminated enough of the rock wall that adjoined the beach to show it was not something I should attempt climbing. In my weakened state, something so tall would only serve as a precarious perch to fall from when my muscles finally gave out.

A wheezing from my left caused me to jerk my attention in that direction and immediately try to conjure up some form of alchemy, but I couldn't… memories of why slowly leaking back into my brain. I gradually approached the being that had made the sound, cautiously keeping my distance. It was a man, or at least it looked to be a man. The end of a paddle oar was protruding from his stomach, its splintered end tearing at a mortal wound that was gushing blood with each breath he gasped in.

He looked up at me and I could already see the life fading from his eyes.

"We're all that made it? They dumped two dozen of us exiles off that ship. Guess that makes us the lucky ones. Luckier than this poor bastard beside me, at any rate." He gestured over to the corpse of a man next to him, laughing a little as he did and immediately wincing in pain. I stood quiet, fixated on the injury that would soon be the death of him and he took notice of my stare. "Splinter sticking out of me? Missed all the important bits… I saw smoke at those ruins up the beach. Go get some help, and I might just-"

The dead body beside him suddenly jolted and sat upright. Its glazed eyes scanned the beach for a moment before falling on the man speaking to me. Without hesitation, the thing lunged at my surviving castaway, digging fingers into the flesh around his collarbone and sinking its teeth into the man's scalp. I heard a 'crunch' noise, one that could only be attributed to bone crumbling under the pressure of something, and the man released a single scream before it and he died altogether.

As the thing continued to munch away on its ample food supply, I quietly took a step back, and another, and another. The last turned out to be one too many as the back of my heel caught on one of the protruding pieces of pointed rock and I fell backwards. I collided with the wet sand beneath me and the loud 'splat' sound it produced tore the creature's attention from the feast in front of it to my sprawled, moving form. It shoved the man aside and began to descend upon me. If there is one thing I can commend the undead for, it is their instinctual obligation to not only seek out food, but stockpile it for their insatiably appetite. I frantically pulled myself back, reaching for whatever I could grasp to defend myself. There was a piece of driftwood next to me and I held it fiercely in my soaked palm, not at all realizing how invaluable what I had just picked up really was. It was the leaves, the few shimmering, purple and blue colored leaves that held delicately to the piece of wood, which cued me in to what I had. Those leaves were a dead giveaway to what was undoubtedly a branch of an Ignis Fatuus tree. They were sacred to those of us who happened to dabble in black magic and accursed to those who followed the Order. Entire forests of the tree were burned in Oriath at the instruction of one former High Templar or another. I didn't know how it got here on this beach and I didn't care, all I knew was that I had to take action before my brains were spilling out of a hole in my head.

I raised the cluster of twigs to the approaching abomination and willed my physical strength to manifest itself and project forth. To my utter surprise and delight, my arm kicked back violently as a transparent wisp of energy shot forth and struck the corpse in the neck, severing its head from its body as if I had just sliced through the rotted area with a sword. Blood instantly began spewing from the creature's open wound, spouting upward and outward like one of the beautiful fountains I so adored as a child. After releasing a gracious amount of its ichor, the thing tumbled to the ground in a heap, the decapitated cranium rolling into the waves and being pulled back into the sea.

In the span of about a minute, I awoke on a strange land, watched a man die and dismantled a rouge undead that was about to eat me. By all accounts, it was going to be a glorious day.

A smile spread across my face as I concluded that the Sovereign Priest who had sealed away my abilities to summon dark magic had either failed to properly lock in the hex or my spirit was stronger than his conviction and it was breaking through his pitiful barricade. I may not be able to attempt the feats I once could, but the way I disposed of my would-be attack was no trick, it was my powers coming back to me.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Price of Virtue

_Author's Note: So I have come to the sad conclusion that I am not so great with multitasking stories. I currently have 3 going on at once now and I feel like I am just spreading everything too thin on them and I should just concentrate on one at a time. This one will be on the back burner for a while as I work on finishing my other two (which are far closer to completion than this one, obviously)._

**Chapter 2 – The Price of Virtue**

* * *

A blue stone rolled out of the pants pocket of the undead as it fell. It was shiny and had a faint glow to it. The thing was small, barely bigger than a pebble and I easily could have held five or more in my small palm if extras were available. As I picked it up and examined it, I realized I was holding a virtue gem. A trinket I had heard of, but never actually had at my disposal.

Countless scores of my ancestors were sacrificed to make these virtue gems, harnessing their powers one by one and infusing them into these shiny hunks of material they ripped from the very soul of the earth. Well, not just mine, but all of our ancestors, really. If it was found that someone contained a unique trait within them, they were marked and told they would be serving a 'greater good' by encapsulating what was inside and allowing it to be shared with the world. The fact that they would have to surrender their very life to accomplish such a task was viewed as honorable at the time, though.

The Vaal civilization were the first people known to use the gems, or 'Tears of Maji' as they called them, but some sort of tragedy befell the population and they were wiped from existence overnight. It is rumored that their last Queen, Atziri, brought endless suffering and death to her people while trying to find immortality for herself. It is a myth passed down for so long that most of it doesn't even make sense anymore, but it involved her powerful (and completely insane) arch thaumaturgist, Doryani, a communion with some beast or spirit and thousands upon thousands of virtue gems… one of which I could be holding in my sweaty little hand right now. After the fall of the Vaal, all that was left in their lands were the stones and mounds of shredded bodies, Queen Atziri and Doryani among them.

* * *

As brave adventurers entered the damned land, some would take handfuls of remnants as a physical display of their fearlessness. The virtue gems were the most pilfered of items.

As they made their way to the main lands, fear and loathing quickly became earmarks of the jewels. While they were secretly sought after by many, they were publicly viewed as a threat to our very way of life itself, corrupting those who came into contact with them. For a while they were thought of as a curse, a visual reminder of the temporary madness a civilization had embraced, foolishly thinking it would make them immortal and forever young when in reality it tainted the very souls of their leaders and sent the whole of them into extinction.

It didn't take long for the gems to be deemed as 'illegal' and they were rounded up by the cartful and prepped for removal… but no matter how hearty their efforts were, the charms could not be destroyed. They tried burning them in fire, but when the ashes blew away the gems were still shining bright. They hired the world's best and strongest blacksmiths to smash them to pieces, but their hammers fell before the runes they were instructed to destroy. Their most foolish plan, though, was to sink them in the farthest depths of the oceans and toss them into the deepest, darkest craters known to man. Accursed items, much like a disease in remission, have ways of finding a path back to us. They would wash ashore beaches and coastlines, being pocketed by fishermen and stragglers. Curious children would dig them up in the far corners of their yards, happily holding them in their grubby little hands to show to their mummies and daddies. The evil which was wrought upon the souls trapped in those gems could never be set free or hidden away… it always found a way.

* * *

A shrill scream in the distance broke my concentration and brought me back to the present, temporarily shelving the history lesson I was giving to myself. I looked around again, taking in the sights with a renewed vigor. This place, grim and dreary as it was, would have to be my fresh start. My fresh start after losing everything I once held dear.

I guess I should count myself lucky that I wasn't executed on the spot for what I did. Really, though, the villagers left me no choice… I had to take revenge on those who took my home, took my history and every thread of what the Audron family really was. They burned my past… so I drowned their futures through their children. I had them march one by one into the lowest point of the swamp I did, and I don't regret it. They were just beasts born of beasts after all, and someone had to cull the herd.

It didn't take long for them to find the bodies of their children and band together to take revenge (revenge for revenge… what a nasty cycle it could turn out to be), scouring the swamp with weapons in hand and nooses slung over trees. I knew what I had brought upon myself, but I grew slightly mad with rage and took no pity on my pursuers. I would burn them, poison them and even call the anger of the storms on them and each who tried to kill me fell from a distance.

Realizing how futile their efforts at retaliation would be, the remaining townsfolk went to the Court of Divine Temperance and were granted a meeting with the High Templar, Dominus. He was only too happy to send his well-trained men on a witch hunt and I knew when they came that it would be my final stand.

I took out many of the advancing Templars before they even knew what hit them, but suddenly I found the fight was over and my face was being shoved deep into the stinking mud of my surroundings while a booted foot pushed on the back of my head. I had heard rumors of the high-ranking Templars containing a power beyond anyone's grasp and imagination, a power to render even the strongest of thaumaturgists to feeble mutes. That was all it was to me, a baseless rumor... until I was silenced by one of them and truly left defenseless. If I ever happened to run into one of them again, I would not make the same mistake of not having a backup plan twice.

* * *

Again my attention was drawn to the shining stone in my hand. Though the idea of using it was almost intoxicating, my Grandmother's wise words of warning came to mind as I dared to dream of the power I could unlock.

She told me, 'To hold it is to feel its potential, to know what it can do… and also to be seduced by its dark promises of ultimate command and control. In reality, it will always end up controlling the host, as any good parasite would.' What other choice did I have, though? I was left as a cripple of the mind by the Order and a witch without any powers is simply… normal. What a disgusting thought. So I would take what I could get to regain what I had lost, and these virtue gems… well, they would do just fine.


End file.
